Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov was born in 1814 in Moscow to an army officer's family. Raised by his grandmother after his mother's early death, he studied at Moscow University and the School of Guards Sub-Lieutenants in St. Petersburg. Byron's influence and aristocratic restlessness marked his early verse.

Lermontov burst into national fame in 1837 when his poem 'Death of the Poet' condemned court society after Alexander Pushkin's fatal duel. Exiled to the Caucasus for the poem's insinuations, he absorbed frontier landscapes into works such as 'The Demon' and the novel A Hero of Our Time (1840)—the first psychological novel in Russian and a portrait of cynical officer Pechorin.

A second duel in Pyatigorsk ended his life in July 1841. Though he wrote intensely for little more than a decade, Lermontov's poetry captured Romantic melancholy and rebellion, while his prose anticipated the Russian realist tradition's moral probing.

1. 1814

   Birth in Moscow

   Lermontov lost his mother young and was raised largely by his wealthy grandmother, Elizaveta Arsenyeva.

2. 1837

   Pushkin Elegy

   His poem mourning Pushkin led to arrest and exile to the Caucasus, where he served with the dragoons.

3. 1840

   Hero of Our Time

   The novel appeared in print, drawing praise and criticism for its cynical hero and fragmented structure.

4. 1841

   Fatal Duel

   Lermontov was killed in a duel with fellow officer Nikolai Martynov near Pyatigorsk, aged twenty-six.